Photo: One of containerships serving Panjang – Tanjung Priok – Intra Asia
The rule on inter-island trade – the Regulation of Trade Minister No 29/2017 – should be revised to adapt with the AFAMT (ASEAN Framework Agreement on Multimodal Transport), Chairman of Indonesia Logistics and Forwarders’ Association Chapter Lampung (DPW ALFI Lampung) Zamzani Yasin has urged.
This is to make the multimodal transport be applicable and to encourage inter-island (domestic) trade be integrated with international trade (export / import).
Since March 2019, Zamzani explained, some mother vessels have been calling at Panjang Port, including 4,000 TEUs containerships routing Panjang – Tanjung Priok -Intra Asia, 50,000 ton bulk carriers, and vessels carrying 13,000 heads of live stocks. “This indicates that Panjang Port can act as transshipment center for surrounding ports,” he said.
Unfortunately, its documentation system has not been integrated yet. Zamzani expects it to follow the best practice in ASEAN, especially the documents of inter-islands cargoes for export. “Now, double documents are needed, giving extra cost and longer time to logistics companies,” he said.
“It is no need for Permendag No.29/2017 to regulate domestic manifest. The manifest is relating to list of cargoes only. This Permendag needs to regulate the inter-island transportation, thus supporting the use of multimodal transport,” he said further.
Echoing the view, ALFI (DPP ALFI) Vice Chairman for Maritime and Port Affairs Harry Sutanto added that the cargo transport document (DAB) for inter-island trade will support the use of multimodal transport with a single document.
“The inter-island trade needs at least two modes of transportation, land and sea or land and air modes,” he said.
Harry noted that the use of DAB will support a more efficient inter-island trade as the DAB can act as SKBDN (Letter of Credit – L/C).
Harry further explained that the DAB is an integral part of multimodal transport system in line with AFAMT.
Quoting the AFAMT guidelines, Harry said that the operator of multimodal transport should be registered by national authority and then be forwarded to AFFA (ASEAN Federation of Forwarders Association) and ASEAN Secretariat.
“Up to now, there are at least 291 JPT (freight forwarding) companies in DKI Jakarta that have been registered to AFFA and ASEAN Secretariat. The numbers will continue to increase including the ones from other regions throughout the country,” he said.
Running the system, according to Harry, will give additional benefits, including real data on domestic trade volume. “Data on domestic trade volume will be very useful for government, especially to reference for policy making,” he said.
Surianto, Chairman of North Sumatera ALFI gave an example of the benefits of integrated system. The delivery of corn commodity from its production center in Karo, Diri, Simalungun (North Sumatera) to Java Island. He said the delivery has not run under integrated transportation yet, causing high cost. According to Surianto, if the delivery has run under multimodal (land and sea modes), the cost will be much cheaper.
Hence, North Sumatera ALFI also calls for the revision of this Permendag No. 29/2017, in a bid to support a more efficient and cheaper cost of inter-island trade activities.